This photo was taken on the way in. You can see Rick pulling the Tab in front of me. It rained on us, and hailed a bit then stopped long enough to get some things in from the cars before it cut loose again.

Here is Rick checking the mail. Nope, no mail.

We can't get down our driveway -- too much snow!! We could not believe our eyes. So we had to park at the top of the driveway and lug stuff down through the snowdrifts that are left. In the rain, mind you. We only brought down the groceries and a few other things for now and we are hoping we figure out a solution for getting rid of the snow so we can park the Tab where she belongs.

The cabin seems in good shape except for a few things, like a broken pipe from the roof, and a stupid packrat somehow found its way into our screened-in porch and made a big smelly nest underneath the wood rack. Peeuw! We'll tackle that another day. 

Right now the heater is running and I made a fire in the wood stove. More to come later, just wanted to let everyone know that we made it, even if we are snowed-out.

No rain! No ROADWORK (well, almost)! No bad wind!

The roadwork was minimal, just merging into one lane for a short time in here in Nebraska, but nothing to slow us down like the previous days. A good day on the road! Geez, the traffic is incredible. So many trucks, and they seemed to come in pods of ten or more. Or what do you call a bunch of trucks together??

The really nice thing is that we are experiencing life in the SLOW  lane which pretty much coincides with what we are doing with our lives. Normally we are going great guns to get to our destination at or slightly above the speed limit. That meant weaving in and out of traffic in Iowa with all those bloody trucks and all those lovely rolling hills. BUT ... when you are driving below the speed limit, everyone passes you by making for a much less stressful trip. Life in the slow lane so far is wonderful.

The drive itself is turlning out to be much better than I had anticipated. Ian Tyson took me all the way through the state of Pennsylvania, and I think he was on song #84 when I finally had to give him up. America's Test Kitchen podcasts took me through Ohio and Indiana and into our stop last night. I cannot imagine them without Christopher Kimball and his profound closing comments. What will happen to them now? I know that I am buying Wishbone Chunky Blue Cheese Dressing when we shop in Laramie before heading in to the cabin. This morning found me singing along to Alan Jackson and laughing out loud at some of the lyrics. Enya (I have no excuses) got me from the state line of Nebraska to here.

Tonight we are in North Platte, Nebraska and only 300 miles from the cabin. Considering we started out with 1800 miles in front of us, 300 feels like a sneeze as compared to the flu. 

Awaiting our Chinese take-out delivery now!

Cabin, ready or not, here we come!!!

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Later ... we just finished our meal and you might not want to order from the Chinese take-out place in North Platte after all ....

We are finally in for the night in Davenport, Iowa. What a day! We've made this trip 7 times and never in all those years have I seen so much traffic or so much roadwork -- in every state! Several times we were stopped dead in our tracks for 20 minutes or more due to ROADWORK, although when traffic finally started to move we did not see anyone actually working so maybe it was all just merging time? Another time there must have been a really bad accident in Indiana right before Chicago because they made everybody exit and detour to I-94. So much fun, I just can't say enough. Not.

Top that off with another end of day massive pouring rainstorm from halfway through Illinois and into Iowa. Seven miles shy of our destination we were stopped yet again for ROADWORK.

When Rick signed us in at the hotel he had to sign a paper that said we only had one pet, plus I had asked for a ground level room because Hailey doesn't do steps that great anymore and they put us on the second floor. So, I take Hailey in one direction down the elevator and Rick takes Bella the other direction. Not to mention eBay .... All the hotels here are full–probably due to the nasty weather and ROADWORK–so we are hoping they don't throw us out. 

It was also extremely windy at the end of the trip and Rick said the canoe was moving around. Yikes. Good thing it's strapped on pretty darned tight.

I find the drive not too bad but the delays for ROADWORK are killing us. 

Now all we need to top the trip off is a side wind through Nebraska!

And as a final note, and I hope I don't offend anyone, but we've given the drivers around the Chicago area our "worst drivers of the trip" award. Enough said.

Another delivery pizza tonight. Even though it was a delicious pizza (last night we had the same last night from Pizza Hut: fresh veggies, balsamic glaze on thin and crispy crust) I am so tired of eating this way! When we get to the cabin it's no carbs for two weeks for me. I am craving steak & salad!

Nighty-nite everyone.

P.S. the photo above was taken by Rick after sitting without moving for 15 minutes.

Sorry, no pics tonight. We are sitting comfortably in a Comfort Inn (haha) in Clarion, PA. We left the closing between 10:00  and 10:30, went back to the house to load the last little few things and of course, the dogs and cat. 

Our closing went smoothly as we knew it would. The house's new owners are a nice young family who loved the house from their first walkthrough with the realtor. It's really nice to see their enthusiasm for the house. Without all the furniture we had in the various rooms, the house looked HUGE to us. They joked about "roller skating" around the basement. 

The thing that sealed the deal for me that we had made the right desicion came when the new owners were doing their walkthrough yesterday. We were out by the pool and the the new owner (who was holding his small one-year-old son) and he said something to the effect of "Hey buddy, we're going to have some great times here" and his son high-5'ved him. That was the defining moment for me. 

Passing it on. 

Just like the antiques we sold to some wonderful people during our estate sale. But that is a whole different post for a day when I have not been on the road.

So, good night from PA. Onwards!

I am sitting here waiting for the locksmith.

Over the past week we've had our estate sale, a day of clean-out, and a day of clean-up. Today is clean-up day and it is almost done. The house is "broom clean" -- all that is required in NJ. But, we do have a cleaning service coming in to tidy up even more. There are many bags of trash at the curb which won't be picked up until next Tuesday. Lynne is out there now sorting all metal from the other trash so we can recycle it.

We are sitting in the kitchen on camp chairs around our camp (foldable) picnic table. Waiting.

We are waiting on Kurt to come do a final mow. We are waiting on the cleaning service. we're waiting on the cable company to come get our cable modem. And, yes, we are waiting on a locksmith.

Since the T@B trailer sat in the driveway for the past couple of months, I purchased a receiver lock to ensure it did not get stolen. But, when we went to hook the trailer up to the truck a hour ago, we could not get the key to work in the receiver lock. A moment of panic ensued. I called the company and they were infinitly helpful in telling me that there was no way the key was going to unlock it if the key slots had become misaligned. I screamed at them a bit. I don't normally scream, or even get really excited, but these people were pissing me off with their attitude.

So, I'm sitting here waiting on the locksmith to cut or drill it off. Then, we can complete our preparation for tomorrow.

The Closing is at 9:00. We expect to be out of town by 11:00.